How can I make you feel better today?

I watched an episode of Royal Pains, an easy-going and fun series about a concierge doctor’s practice called HankMed in the Hamptons. When answering the phone they say: “How can we make you feel better today?”.

In the past when I was working full-time in a zoo or aquarium I did not always pay attention to all the details, because I was so swamped with work and full filing the needs of our visiting public, safety etc. or because I did not know otherwise. For example, I did not always notice that the bedding material was less in quantity or not of good quality and the nest building of our small rodents was OK but not ideal.

With the marine mammals like dolphins, seals, sea lions and walruses we used some enrichment devices but most objects would only float and were hard to take to the bottom or to interact within the water column. By paying more attention to details, to the quality of e.g., interactions, relationships or sleep, as well as the number of opportunities,...

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In their shoes… fins, paws, feet...

We are all thinking about animal care, including how we interact with them and ways we can impact their wellbeing ranging from negatively to positively, i.e., the quality of care. To think about how we do what we do is impacting them, or likely, or possibly impacting them. 

One of the questions, or rather perhaps, exercises, I like to think about and engage in is: what it would be like to be in their position? Where they live, with whom, what opportunities and affordances they have, etc. This is a difficult thing to do and not without interpretational hurdles and problems, I know, I already hear the word anthropomorphism ringing in my ears.

I bet anyone working with animals would love to be able to be that animal or species or individual for 1 day (or longer)! To experience e.g., what the world is like for them, how do they experience varies things in their lives, how and what they think about, how do they feel and experience their world emotionally? Can we just be Dr...

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